Lamberto
Bava's Demons, which was released on
Friday, May 30, 1986, is one of the most entertaining and unintentionally
hilarious horror films that I have ever experienced. Set upon an unsuspecting
public with an ad campaign similar to that of George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead (1978), the film was
distributed without a rating in selected markets and warned that no one under
17 would be admitted. It's interesting to note that although Demons is quite gory, most of the
violence is fantastic in nature and is fairly tame when compared to the horror
films of the last 10 to 15 years which have tended to be not only brutally
violent but also gratuitous to an unnecessary degree. While a good number of
audience members have a seemingly insatiable and unquenchable thirst for blood
and guts, I prefer horror films that spend more time on character, story, and
style. If gore is part of the equation, that's fine, but it doesn't really
interest me if it's the only point of the film. In Demons, the gore is there and it's messy, but it's not over the top
and is only used to accentuate the action.

Filmed during the summer of 1985 in then-West
Berlin, Germany and at a long-gone derelict theater in Italy, Demons is most definitely an ‘80’s film.
The hairstyles, the clothing, and the music pulsating on the soundtrack all
point to a time that took place 30 years ago. The film poses the question as to
what would happen if a group of randomly selected members of the public were
given the opportunity to see a sneak preview of an untitled film in a theater and
what would happen if they got stuck in that very theater with absolutely no way
of getting out. This is a tried-and-true horror film plot, but it's pulled off
extraordinarily well and has loads of quotable dialogue. Cheryl (Natasha Hovey) and Kathy (Paola
Cozzo) are friends who are presumably in high school or college and decide to
blow off class for the sneak preview. They've both been given complimentary
tickets by a strange man wearing a metal mask over his face. Along with a group of other people, they make
their way into the theater. The audience is comprised of a crazy cast of
characters, most notably: Ken (Karl Zinny) and George (Urbano Barberini) who
make sure that they sit next to Cheryl and Kathy; Frank and Ruth, a married
couple who provide comic relief; and the uproarious Tony (the inimitable Bobby
Rhodes), a snazzy pimp with his two whores Carmen (Fabiola Toldeo) and Rosemary
(Geretta Giancarlo), who he often yells at. Tony and his ladies provide some of
the funniest and most memorable dialogue in the film. While watching the movie
within the movie, strange things begin to happen in the audience. A
disease-like contagion breaks out and pretty soon the audience is fighting for
their lives, attempting to make their way out of the theater as the exits are
inexplicably blocked.

As if this motley crew wasn’t enough, a
group of outsiders driving around in a car comprised of one woman and three men
(two of whom are named Baby Pig and Ripper!) are a crazy lot who manage to make
their way inside the theater. An all-out war between the infected audience in
the form of demons and those who haven't been affected breaks out and threatens
all of human kind.

The release of Demons on DVD and Blu-ray has been a long time coming. Don May’s
excellent company, Synapse Films, has done a bang up job of re-furnishing the
film and making it look bright and clear, as opposed to the old VHS and
American laser disk pressings which were notoriously dark and full of contrast,
making it very difficult to interpret the on-screen action. The special edition Blu-ray came out months
ago, but for those of you interested in just the film, the DVD movie-only
release fits the bill. It sports not
only the original American mono audio, but also the much better sounding
European stereo mix. The dubbing is
entertainingly ludicrous and is done by different loopers on the respective
sound tracks. Claudio Simonetti provides
one of his best film scores which is interspersed with period music of the
era.